


Hogwarts PTA

by RagingLamb



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Divorce, Drinking, Gen, Gryffindor Dudley Dursley, Magical Dudley Dursley, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Petunia Dursley Tries, Slytherin Harry Potter, Vernon Dursley Being an Asshole
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28890312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RagingLamb/pseuds/RagingLamb
Summary: Petunia may not be a particularly good aunt, but she is an excellent PTA mom. This skill helps a lot when she is freshly divorced and caring for her magical son and nephew.
Relationships: Dudley Dursley & Harry Potter, Dudley Dursley & Petunia Evans Dursley, Petunia Evans Dursley & Harry Potter, Petunia Evans Dursley & Severus Snape
Comments: 14
Kudos: 103





	1. Upside Down and Back Again

Petunia’s mouth was dry and hanging open like she was trying to catch flies when she found the letters. One addressed to the boy and the other addressed to her Duddykins. She didn’t understand. She’d been expecting Harry’s letter, but her Dudley? Never had she expected that he might be mag—like her sister. Like Lily.

Vernon was raving on and on about beating it out of the both of them. Petunia couldn’t have that. Couldn’t he see, this changed things. This was their darling Dudley they were talking about.

=====================================================================================

In the end, she left Vernon. He took the house; she took the boys.

“It was you who said it was unnatural, Petunia!” He’d screamed after them as their cab drove away, uncaring about the stares of the neighbors. She couldn’t begin to imagine what they thought about the commotion. It made her a little ill to think about.

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The little family of three moved into a hotel while Petunia worked on what needed to be done.

Things were so busy and stressful that Petunia completely forgot about the letters until a terse knock sounded at their door and she opened it to that boy from her youth. Still as dark and broody as ever.

It was abundantly clear that Severus Snape did not want to be there.

Not that Petunia wanted him to be there either.

But this wasn’t about them or Lily or anything like that. This was about her boys. Harry and her Dudley.

So, she is cordial with him as he takes them by train and then by cab over to the entrance to Diagon Alley. It’s as magnificent as Petunia remembers from when she and Lily were girls. There are sparks and spells going off all around them with the sounds of haggling and the smell of herbs drifting through the air. The boys look equally mystified by it all and Petunia feels her heart clench at the sight.

Petunia openly stares at the massive amount of gold in Harry’s vaults and blushes profusely when he gives her enough to pay for Dudley’s supplies.

Child support was still being negotiated and she was beginning to run low on funds.

They bought robes and books and cauldrons and wands. And the whole time Harry held tight to his new things like they’d be taken in an instant. Just what had they been thinking, Petunia wondered, doing what they’d done to that boy? What had she been doing, letting it go on under her roof?

Petunia made sure to buy the boys ice cream at Fortescue’s before they left for the day, burdened by their day’s purchases.

=====================================================================================

Snape jammed his boot into the door before Petunia could close it after he’d escorted them back to the hotel.

“Before I go,” he said in that stupid low voice of his, “I thought I should tell you that there’s an opening at the Leaky Cauldron as a bartender and waitress . . . and that it’s cheaper than this hotel you’re living in.”

“Anything else?” Petunia asked testily.

“Yes, it also has a floo and owls available. It’ll be easier to contact your son and nephew from there without raising suspicion.”

He finally extracted his foot from the door and walked away, allowing Petunia to slam it shut.

 _Damn him for being right_.

The next day Petunia drags herself over to the Leaky Cauldron with the boys in tow to apply and is quickly given the job. They move in the day after with the help of Tom, the barman.

=====================================================================================

With all the stress of moving and starting a new job and preparing to be parted with her son and the blasted owl screeches Petunia almost doesn’t have the time or patience to deal with straightening out her son’s behavior towards his cousin.

But she does, day after day. Undoing what she allowed to be done for years.

She dealt with the screaming temper tantrums that rose up in response too. Because she has to. She has to make things right.

And eventually things get easier.

Dudley and Harry sit together going over their schoolbooks with wide eyes while Petunia gets ready for her nightly shift in the bar. And the workload gets easier as she settles into her position.

And slowly, bit by bit, she gets used to the magic all around her.


	2. New Normal

The time finally came for the boys to leave for Hogwarts and Petunia made sure they both had everything they needed, including some pocket money to get treats on the train. (Petunia remembered the treats Lily had sent back after the train rides each year.)

Tom had introduced them all to the concept of the floo, so they were able to easily step through the fireplace onto the platform . . . though not without stumbling and getting covered in dust.

The train was every bit as magnificent as Petunia remembered it to be, shiny red and billowing smoke into a platform bustling with witches and wizards seeing off their own charges. There was no shortage of parents fussing over young children, straightening robes and hair and the like.

Petunia, for her part, had done all of her fussing back in their rooms at the Leaky Cauldron, completely unwilling to let her boys go out looking anything less than proper. Of course, the soot from the floo dampened the effect some, but there wasn’t much to be done about that. So, she took her boys to the side, somewhat away from the bustle of the platform, and brushed off their shoulders and their hair. Just a bit. An amount that was tolerable to both young boys.

Then, she pressed a kiss to Dudley’s forehead and wrapped him in a hug. He walked on, pushing his trolley, to find a carriage for himself and his cousin. And Petunia turned her attention to Harry who was looking up at her with those familiar eyes. She leaned down to be eyelevel with him.

“Make sure to write, Harry. And be sure to let me know if anything goes wrong.”

He nodded with a “Yes, aunt Petunia.” And Petunia pulled him into her arms, wrapping him in a hug.

Harry didn’t know what to do for a moment, unfamiliar with this kind of physical contact (and how Petunia regretted that, how guilty she felt), but eventually he wrapped his arms around her and returned the hug before detangling himself from her embrace. And then he was gone, disappeared into the crowd in pursuit of Dudley.

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The beginning of term was relatively peaceful as far as Petunia was aware. Harry had gotten into Slytherin and Dudley into Gryffindor, whatever that meant for them. Harry wasn’t overly fond of most of his housemates but was making the most of his situation and making some friends outside of his house when he could. Dudley was working on adapting to a new environment and tried to tag along with Harry when he could.

Both boys were dealing with Snape being a bit of a bastard (her words not theirs).

But it was all fine until Halloween rolled around.

That saw Petunia storming into Hogwarts via the floo and rushing up to the head table at breakfast for all of the students to see. Dumbledore was quick to usher her away and up to his office to receive his chastisement, unwilling to have the student body bear witness to the tongue lashing that Petunia was going to give him.

And what a tongue lashing. She rained abuse over the man without mercy. Her son and nephew had very nearly been killed by a troll of all things! Lily had never faced a troll while she was at school.

“An oversight in our security, for sure, but one that will not arise again,” Dumbledore assured her.

Petunia let herself be calmed somewhat but promised that she’d rain hell on him if anything of the sort happened again while her boys were in attendance.

She probably should have realized that Dumbledore would try to get the boys to keep quiet about future incidents. Not that he could keep that under wraps for long.

Dudley wasn’t one to suffer silently and, after everything, he wouldn’t let Harry either.

“Everything” here meaning, Harry’s gallant defense of Dudley despite his lingering dislike of the boy. As it turned out, the wizarding world had certain prejudices that none of them had been fully aware of before entering it. A prejudice against muggles and muggleborns. A prejudice that was especially present and prominent in Harry’s house, Slytherin. And so, Harry heard a lot about how Dudley was awful just because of him being born to a muggle. Which wasn’t fair, Dudley was awful for other reasons and Harry should know.

Though, he was distinctly less awful after Petunia and Vernon’s separation and subsequent divorce.

So, Dudley was okay, and he wasn’t about to let his cousin be pushed around by a fashion disaster of an old man.

This is why Petunia heard everything that happened over the course of that year. And why she showed up after the detention in the Forbidden Forest that saw her boys almost getting trampled by centaurs and attacked by some robed mystery monster.

She was very unhappy when she heard about that and took it up with Dumbledore. When he couldn’t assure her that it wouldn’t happen again for the second time that year, Petunia decided to form a PTA.

It was a bit difficult to find members, but she managed. She got a list of potential members from the Deputy Headmistress and went on from there.

So, when Petunia stormed the castle for the third time that year after Harry got attacked by a teacher (a possessed teacher as Dudley told it), she wasn’t alone. She was flanked by the Malfoys, Lady Longbottom, Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape, and Molly Weasley. No blows were exchanged but coming out the other side Dumbledore almost wished they had.

The Hogwarts PTA was Dumbledore’s most dangerous foe to date.


	3. Wine and Whine

When the summer rolled around, Petunia and her charges were extended an invitation to stay with the Longbottoms until the school year resumed. And how could Petunia reject such a generous offer from her new ally?

That’s how the small family came to be living in Longbottom Manor the summer of 1992. Between working and watching the boys, Petunia arranged meeting of the Hogwarts PTA to help get them established. It wasn’t exactly easy to manage the diverse temperaments of the members (nor her own), but it was no more difficult than planning and navigating bridge club had been back in Surrey, so she managed.

The Malfoys would bring their son and send him off with the other boys while the PTA met in the large front parlor of the manor. The boys had stayed once or twice, but quickly deemed their business too boring and ran along to do whatever they did while the adults weren’t watching.

Once the boys’ curiosity was sated, the drinks flowed freely.

Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of bitching about Dumbledore going on while the parents and teachers laid out plans of how to deal with the senile old man over drinks. A favorite talking point was his atrocious fashion taste.

The reason for their meetings being relatively low in productivity was due to the fact that all the magical folk present assured Petunia that they couldn’t know what fresh catastrophes awaited them in the coming school year. Apparently, it was a millennia long Hogwarts tradition that something go horribly wrong at least once a year and there was simply no way to predict what it would be until it was upon them.

So, they drank wine and tried to get to know each other. And when they got to know each other, they tried very hard not to kill each other.

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Because of all the meetings going on Dudley, Harry, Neville, and Draco spent a great deal of time around each other that summer. Awkward and hostile as the atmosphere was at first, they still grew rather close over the course of the summer. They took to playing broom games that often involved stunts that would’ve given their guardians heart attacks had they been present.

Dudley and Harry were coming to be on better terms all of the time. Neville grew less timid by the day. And Draco . . . well Harry wasn’t letting Draco get away with anything that summer, certainly not taunting Neville over supposed cowardice or Dudley over his blood status. So, he got better too, over time.

Petunia felt pride stirring in her when she caught Harry defending the other two boys from Draco one of those early summer days.

=====================================================================================

“You’re—you’re such a bitch,” Petunia slurred, gesturing at either Snape or Lucius with her glass of wine.

It soon became apparent that it was both of them when she waved her glass to capture both of them before jabbing it first at Snape, “You—re a right foul git, just like when we were kids. . . right bastard to my boys,” and she took a sip before jabbing at Lucius, “An’ you. You are the slimiest pompous git I’ve ever met. An’ I was married to one.”

“Ooooh,” Snape shot back, even more slurred, “An’ you’re so great?”

Narcissa began giggling hysterically, “You all suck!” she shouted gleefully, before giving Lucius a wet kiss on the cheek, “Even you darling.”

Minerva grunted in agreement from where she was slumped in her chair. Meanwhile Augusta just sat watching them all with eyes that were struggling to stay open. Molly was already conked out in her seat, head rested upon the table in front of her.

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Petunia was immensely grateful for magic that summer, if only because of the hangover cures that Severus was able to provide in the wake of all the unofficial PTA meetings occurring. Merlin knows that she wasn’t enjoying the occasional bouts of hormone fueled accidental magic nearly as much. Or the creepy little elf that followed Harry from the shadows whenever the Malfoys were around.


End file.
